Anne presented at the first conference of the newly formed National School of Occupational Health on the 26th September 2014. There were over a hundred participants from various areas of occupational health (OH) practise.
The remit for the presentation was to inform participants of the role of occupational therapy in occupational health. As the overall theme of the study day was the Food Industry, Anne chose to focus her presentation on 8 years’ experience of providing occupational therapy (OT) within the Scotch Whisky Industry.
The introduction of the session presented facts and figures to the audience, including:

Exports of Scotch Whisky are worth £4.3 billion to the UK and it accounts for ¼ of the UK’s food and drink exports

10,000 are directly employed in the industry, mainly in economically deprived areas, and over 35,000 jobs across the UK are supported by the industry

Hence why it is important that the industry continue to be productive, and that the skilled www.resume-for-you.com workers in this industry are kept healthy!
Anne introduced participants to the manufacturing process from malting to aging to bottling in order to illustrate the demands of various roles and how in some areas, traditional methods continue to be used, which can be very difficult to adapt or to accommodate for impaired functional ability.Anne discussed the 3 main areas of occupational health in which occupational therapy provides services:

Functional Capacity Evaluation (FCE) – focussed on job specific FCE and the importance of Job Demands Analysis (JDA) in matching capacity to demands in order to facilitate return to work and maintenance at work. Also discussed, how the FCE can be used to evaluate workers with limitation in physical, cognitive or mental health function and that it is the clinical expertise of the occupational therapist that is important.

Ergonomics Evaluation – slides that illustrated real work demands were used to engage the audience in the workshop by encouraging them to identify concerns and then solutions based on principles and strategies to minimise risk and facilitate performance. The principles and strategies can be used in any industry

Education and Training – briefly discussed a participatory ergonomics programme and the use of education and training in ergonomics to identify and up-skill suitable staff to engage in the programmes.

The feedback form the presentation was very positive with a number of OH colleagues voicing they did not realise what OT had to offer in OH; however, now they did!

Anne was specifically requested to present on “Functional capacity evaluation and vocational rehabilitation in the assessment of and enabling successful fit for work outcomes”.
Anne’s 40 minute presentation considered the title in terms of international experience, practise and the literature and discussed functional capacity evaluation (FCE) in terms of what can be assessed and who can be assessed, and why Job Specific FCE is best suited to occupational health practise.
Anne shared her extensive experience as an occupational therapist working in occupational health in Canada where she helped set up and subsequently managed a highly successful, in terms of rehab and financial outcomes, an award winning employee rehabilitation unit. Drawing on her experience in Canada and her continued occupational health experience here in the UK, Anne’s main theme was to introduce Job Specific FCE using the Matheson approach to FCE and how it can be effective in objectively determining fitness for work and enable the timely and safe return to work. Anne discussed the evidence to support Job Specific FCE and what the evaluation entails, illustrating the use of an objective FCE and Job demands Analysis (JDA) to facilitate matching capacity for work to job demands.

Anne used a practical case example to illustrate what information can be gleaned from the evaluation and illustrated how Occupational Health practitioners can use the findings to:

determine fitness for work,

to inform meaningful return to work plans,

to determine the efficacy of current or rehabilitation and

to identify reasonable accommodations.

Anne underlined the value and need for robust assessment in occupational health in order to ensure evidence based practise and to enable successful outcomes in return to work and maintenance at work.

For more information on how you can learn to use job specific functional capacity evaluations in Occupational Health please look at our training pages on our website.